{"id":1935,"date":"2016-11-17T23:35:24","date_gmt":"2016-11-18T07:35:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/?p=1935"},"modified":"2016-11-17T23:35:24","modified_gmt":"2016-11-18T07:35:24","slug":"how-does-a-manager-abolish-managers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/how-does-a-manager-abolish-managers\/","title":{"rendered":"How does a manager abolish managers?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m deeply excited about the future of self-managed\u00a0organizations, but I’m uneasy about the way some of these organizations are undergoing the transition.\u00a0Perhaps this is captured in the opening paragraph of an article from\u00a0The Atlantic<\/a>: “This spring, by order of the CEO, Tony Hsieh, the company abolished managers, eliminated job titles, denounced its own organizational hierarchy, and vested all authority in a 10,000-word constitution….”<\/p>\n

There’s clearly something ironic about abolishing managers “by order of the CEO.” In the old system, of course, the CEO did<\/em> have the power to declare such a change. But to begin\u00a0a glorious new era of empowered employees\u00a0by commanding<\/em> it? That feels to me like a dangerous precedent, and a recipe for all the sorts of problems that self-management is intended\u00a0to solve<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I realize that this sort of transition is going to be difficult no matter what, and I don’t claim to have any magic solutions. But I do\u00a0wonder what alternatives\u00a0might be explored\u00a0that are more in the spirit of empowerment, wholeness, and purpose. Could the CEO\u00a0invite<\/em>\u00a0teams to experiment with self-management, and support their efforts if and when they\u00a0proceed? Could the CEO begin to\u00a0practice<\/em> self-management, at least within\u00a0her own team of executives? Could the CEO share with the rest of the company\u00a0his\u00a0own authentic hopes and fears about a potential transition?<\/p>\n

And what is a CEO to do if the company as a whole does not want<\/em> the freedom, responsibility, uncertainty, and pain that comes with\u00a0such a transition? Wouldn’t it be against the spirit of a compassionate community to force<\/em> such a change? And anyway, wouldn’t such force merely arouse suspicion, resentment, and resistance from those who it is forced upon?<\/p>\n

In Zappos’ case, anyone who did not want to transition were\u00a0invited to leave the company with generous severance pay. I like the individual\u00a0freedom in this, but again\u00a0I worry about the precedent: not everyone is welcome in this community.<\/p>\n

I suspect there is still a lot of opportunity\u00a0for creativity and experimentation in helping organizations transition to self-management more gradually, organically, and compassionately.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m deeply excited about the future of self-managed\u00a0organizations, but I’m uneasy about the way some of these organizations are undergoing the transition.\u00a0Perhaps this is captured in the opening paragraph of an article from\u00a0The Atlantic: “This spring, by order of the CEO, Tony Hsieh, the company abolished managers, eliminated job titles, denounced its own organizational hierarchy, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “How does a manager abolish managers?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1935"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1936,"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935\/revisions\/1936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robinstewart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}